A bushy-tailed fox slipped past security at the U.S. Supreme
Court building early Sunday. It launched a hunt throughout the cavernous marble
structure that, by late Monday, had become something of a federal case.

The intruder was seen Sunday morning by a security officer
near an entrance to the court's basement garage, then appeared on a closed-circuit
surveillance monitor after it sneaked into the garage, officers say.

Court officials moved quickly. The building, which isn't
open to the public on Sundays, was closed to staff members so that a fox hunt
could begin. Animal-control officers from the District of Columbia were called
to help.

Then came some real expertise: Two American foxhounds and
a border terrier were brought in, courtesy of a hunt club from a Virginia suburb
where fox hunts are the sport of high society.

And yet, nothing.

Monday, with the fox still presumably in the building,
employees returned to work but were told to look out for the creature. More
animal experts were called in. Traps were set.

The hunt club team did flirt with success: Its dogs detected
the fox's scent in the basement but soon lost it. Marble floors apparently aren't
conducive to tracking foxes, a court official said.

The justices went ahead with the oral arguments that had
been scheduled in their crimson-velvet-draped courtroom. But by Monday afternoon,
it was clear that the fox had become the latest story line in an already strange
term at the court. During the recent anthrax scare, the justices were forced
to meet outside of their building for the first time since it opened in 1935
because traces of anthrax were discovered in a basement mailroom.

Spokeswoman Kathy Arberg says the officers who saw the
creature Sunday were not sure of its color, and people who saw it on tape had
trouble estimating its size. But, Arberg says, those who saw it all agreed that
it was, unquestionably, a fox.

Jim Monsma, acting executive director of the Washington
Humane Society, says authorities have been getting more calls than usual from
D.C. residents about foxes.

"There are foxes all over the city, but we're getting more
calls from places where people hadn't been seeing them," he says. "I get calls
about twice a week about foxes."

Monsma says he was surprised the Supreme Court fox had
been so elusive. But "they are good at hiding. They can squeeze into amazingly
small places. Foxes are pretty foxy."